English literature revision help

Hey guys, hope all your revision for the upcoming exams are going well. I was just wondering how everyone is going to revise for the literature exam. My school is doing Of Mice and Men, An Inspector Calls and we are also doing the relationships cluster for poetry. It would be great help if anyone could shed light on some revision tips for me and how to revise effectively as literature is probably my primary concern. Thanks, and good luck for your exams! :smile:

Reply 1

Annettee

3

Original post by 09faltaf

Hey guys, hope all your revision for the upcoming exams are going well. I was just wondering how everyone is going to revise for the literature exam. My school is doing Of Mice and Men, An Inspector Calls and we are also doing the relationships cluster for poetry. It would be great help if anyone could shed light on some revision tips for me and how to revise effectively as literature is probably my primary concern. Thanks, and good luck for your exams! :smile:

Hello!
I am also doing An Inspector calls and the relationship cluster for poetry. However I am doing To kill a mockingbird instead of Mice and men. My best advice for the literature exam: know ALL the poems inside out! All the annotations that you are doing in lesson for the poems, just go over them and have a structure embedded into your mind. How are you going to structure your essay? You need to know that and practice it over and over again. The unseen poetry will not be too hard if you have practiced the other poems, because you would have improved on your actual skill by soooo much! The key is to know all your poems really, and to practice your analysis skills. Hopefully, you should be fine!

Goodluck!

Reply 2

EY21

Mine is doing the same: Of Mice and Men, An Inspector Calls and the relationships section. I find it helpful to write key points on post it notes and stick them in areas I will see them frequently, or read through a revision guide and highlight in different colours.
It might also be a good idea to ask your teacher for previous exam questions so you can practise how to respond in an exam situation- knowing what the examiners are looking for is something I find really helpful so try searching for mark schemes online.

If you find it hard to learn from words, why don't you record yourself aloud and listen to it when you're walking places or on the bus etc. hope this helps and good luck to you too!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 3

username1118458

21

For the Poetry exam I STRONGLY suggest getting a CGP guide, I have one for the Characters & Voice cluster (which is the one my school are doing) and it is a LIFE saver, deep analysis of every poem and plenty of notes for lazy people such as myself who don't do notes in lesson that often - or to help you for when you have a poem you didn't quite understand in lesson, or to just generally give you more points you have missed out or your teacher may have missed out.

Reply 4

09faltaf

OP

1

Nice one guys, thanks a lot. that's me sorted for poetry. How will you guys revise for Of Mice and Men and Inspector Calls? Cheers :top:

Reply 5

WeirdlyWonderful

7

When I did this I revised all of the poems with the annotations. Complete all annotations if you haven't already so this means asking classmates or asking the teacher. Most importantly, you need to come up with your own ideas because this is what gives you high marks. The stuff the teacher tells you is something that EVERYONE across the board will write about, so you want to be different.

Make sure you know what to look out for in poems (the poetry techniques) Just incase you forget what one poem has and this will also help greatly for the unseen poem.

Lastly, even if you think one of your ideas for what the poem is trying to say is weird or different, as long as you justify it.. Examiners would really like it. They like reading new ideas from individuals, instead of the usual 'surface' things. Read between the lines and make sure you can get everything out of the poem.

In terms of Mice and Men, learn the important scenes as you can refer to these when answering the question. Again, look out for techniques and ALWAYS comment on the effect something has on the reader e.g. They'd feel sympathy, excitement, ask questions etc.

Good luck :smile:

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Reply 6

EY21

Original post by yellowcopter

For the Poetry exam I STRONGLY suggest getting a CGP guide, I have one for the Characters & Voice cluster (which is the one my school are doing) and it is a LIFE saver, deep analysis of every poem and plenty of notes for lazy people such as myself who don't do notes in lesson that often - or to help you for when you have a poem you didn't quite understand in lesson, or to just generally give you more points you have missed out or your teacher may have missed out.

I agree- the CGP revision guides are amazing! :smile:

Reply 7

username1118458

21

Original post by 09faltaf

Nice one guys, thanks a lot. that's me sorted for poetry. How will you guys revise for Of Mice and Men and Inspector Calls? Cheers :top:

For Of Mice and Men and The Inspector Calls (which coincidentally are both the novels my school are doing too) I'm planning to just practice a bunch of past questions, get someone such as my teacher or someone who's good at English/English marking to mark it and see what I'm missing out that's loosing marks in - then retry each of the questions taking the corrections into account until I get a high A or A*. I think just practice and filling in the gaps of places you don't know (e.g. forgetting a few chapters and events) is all you really need to do, just ensure your confident with all possible questions.

I really suggest quote finding practice too if you're not any good at it, because you can't really waste time spending ages looking for quotes in the book. I know I'll have to because I suck at it. Something I really recommend, which I'm planning to do, if find one solid universal quote for each chapter that could be applied to any question and then memorise it, so you can quickly refer to it and use it without even having to open the book and wasting time look for quotes. :smile:

Original post by EY21

I agree- the CGP revision guides are amazing! :smile: